Managing Change Successfully

We read somewhere that in a normal population only 10% to 15% of people are what psychologists would call “change embracers” while the remaining 85% to 90% are “change resisters.” Whether or not the numbers are precisely accurate, the fact remains that people's general resistance to change makes instituting change in organizations one of the most difficult challenges leaders face. Bringing about meaningful change in public schools can be even more difficult because seemingly every year teachers are required to master and teach the latest and greatest program to improve reading or math or spelling scores, only to find that this year's innovations are inevitably replaced by next year's. While we're not questioning the efficacy of any of the myriad ...